This brief review of the work of Thomas Malthus was presented in observance of the 10th anniversary of Rwanda's National Office of Population. When Malthus published his observations on the relationship between growth of population and that of resources, England was experiencing a situation of economic, political, and social crisis. Malthus foresaw a catastrophe if England's unprecedented population growth continued while food and industrial production remained stagnant. Obvious parallels can be noted in the situation of contemporary Rwanda, extending even to the optimism of a large part of the population concerning the effects of population growth and the unrealistic solution proposed by religious groups. Malthus believed that the growth of population is potentially geometric, while that of resources can never be more than arithmetic. He identified 2 kinds of obstacles to population growth, which he termed positive checks and preventive checks. Preventive checks included celibacy and chastity, but also contraception, which he condemned as morally indefensible along with infanticide, abortion, and adultery. Positive checks included especially the misery that was the fate of most of the European population in the 18th and 19th centuries. Disease, famine, and war would keep down population numbers. Malthus, ever pessimistic in his writings, doubted that remedies could be found for the problems posed by his principles of population. He rejected the egalitarian system reflected in the poor laws and equally rejected the possibility of a solution in emigration. The most astonishing thing about the controversy surrounding the ideas of Malthus is that "Malthusianism" came to be equated with ideas encouraging birth limitation through the use of contraception, a possibility condemned by Malthus himself. After World War II, with the decline of fertility well established in the developed countries, attention turned to the developing world, which in 1990 contained some 5 billion persons totalling over 80% of the entire world population. The developed nations and the organisms they created were at the forefront of population control efforts in the developing countries. 10 years after the founding of Rwanda's National Office of Population, the country is still threatened by uncontrolled population growth.